Archaeologist Miles Russell argues that Verica, the British ruler who talked Emperor Claudius into invading in A.D. 43, was a woman. His case leans on coins and old Roman gossip.
History books have called Verica a king for a very long time. Miles Russell thinks they got the pronoun wrong.
Russell runs archaeological fieldwork at Bournemouth University in England. He argues that Verica, who ruled the Atrebates in what’s now southern England, was a woman.
Verica is no footnote, either. According to the Roman historian Cassius Dio, Verica is the ruler who talked Emperor Claudius into invading Britain.
Gizmodo, Popular Science and New Scientist reported the claim on Wednesday, Nov. 4. Russell lays it out in a new article for Current Archaeology magazine and in an upcoming book about Caratacus, another Iron Age leader.
“Verica was a major player in the story of how Britain became a Roman province,” Russell told Gizmodo. Verica “has always been misgendered,” he said.
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Who was Verica?
Verica led the Atrebates, whose land covered much of modern Hampshire and West Sussex, LBC reported. Around A.D. 40, Verica was pushed out of power and fled to Rome, according to Gizmodo and LBC.
Dio, writing in Greek more than 150 years later, gives the whole thing one sentence. In a common English translation, he says “a certain Bericus, who had been driven out of the island as a result of an uprising, had persuaded Claudius to send a force thither.” Most historians take Bericus to be Verica.
Rome invaded in A.D. 43. Gizmodo noted that nobody knows what became of Verica after that.
Why does Russell think Verica was a woman?
Start with the name. Female names of the era often ended in “a,” Russell points out. Think Boudica and Cartimandua, two British rulers known to be women.
Then there’s REX, Latin for king, stamped on some of Verica’s coins. Russell said in a statement that “rex is a nongender specific title,” LBC reported. “Both male and female kings were recognised by Rome, Cleopatra of Egypt being the most famous,” he said.
The pictures may be his best card. “The distinctive imagery deployed by Verica show slender, bare-breasted and overtly female equestrian warriors,” he told Gizmodo. “No other coin-producing Iron Age leader in Britain put female warriors on coins.”
What did Roman writers have against Claudius?
Plenty. They painted him as weak, with his decisions dictated by women and freed slaves, LBC reported. Russell argues that Verica fit that picture a little too neatly.
“In effect, Dio was saying that the campaign was undertaken solely because of the whisperings of a barbarian femme fatale,” he said in his statement, as quoted by LBC and Popular Science.
The freed slave in Dio’s story is Narcissus, one of Claudius’ aides. The troops wouldn’t sail until Narcissus tried to give them a speech. Dio says they shouted him down with “Io Saturnalia,” a joke about the holiday when slaves dressed as their masters, then followed their general anyway.
Do other experts agree that Verica was a woman?
None had weighed in, as far as we could find. The coverage we read on Wednesday, Nov. 4, didn’t quote any outside expert. The argument also hasn’t been through peer review, since it’s running in a magazine for general readers and a book.
Museum records still use the old reading. Museums Victoria in Australia catalogs a gold Verica coin marked VIR and REX, describing the rider on it as a horseman. It reads the letters COM.F as Latin for “son of Commius.”
None of the reports we saw say how Russell handles that inscription. He wants people to trust the coins. “We should take the archaeological evidence at face value and remember Verica as a female-king and one of the earliest and most important of British female leaders,” he said.
Were women in charge in Iron Age Britain?
Some evidence points that way. In January 2025, a team including Russell and geneticist Lara Cassidy published a study in Nature. They looked at 57 ancient genomes from burial sites of the Durotriges, a tribe in southern Britain.
They found a big family group built around one maternal line. The unrelated people buried with them were mostly men. Russell told Gizmodo that this points “to a matrilocal society where men ‘married in’ and moved to join their wife’s community.”
Russell hopes people will read the old histories with a raised eyebrow. Ancient historians, “especially Roman ones,” were “more than a little biased in their outlook,” he said, according to Gizmodo. If he’s right, Verica is Exhibit A.
Article compiled and written by Thom Pratt (editor-in-chief), Derek Gibbs (beat editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
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Gizmodo, Ed Cara (Nov. 4): Russell’s interview quotes and the Current Archaeology article.
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LBC, Flaminia Luck (Nov. 4): Russell’s statement and the Atrebates’ territory.
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Popular Science, Andrew Paul (Nov. 4): Russell’s statement.
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New Scientist (Nov. 4): The lead.
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Museums Victoria: Catalog entry for a gold Verica coin.
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Nature, Cassidy et al. (Jan. 15, 2025): The Durotriges genome study.
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Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book 60 (Loeb translation): Bericus and Narcissus.
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